Olly sat in the worn drivers seat of the 1997 Saturn with the seat reclined as he took a deep pull of the dwindling cigarette pinched between his finger tips. He crushed filters, force of habit. The seat was reclined back as he stared out the sunroof at the rain splattering against the glass. He always found it relaxing to watch the rain come so close and yet it would never touch him.

  Something was god damn peaceful about the rain. In all honesty it was the sunny and seventy summer time he could not stand. Felt like the beach boys and John Lennon could burn.Fall. That's the season. Not spring, not winter. Fall. Something about seeing the leaves change. The air is getting cold but not too cold. That's where the magic is.

  Olly didn’t want to sit up, but the cherry was burning his hands and he was pulling on a filter now so he did. His brother would joke that he would smoke his fingertips if he could. Truth was he just loved smoking and didn’t want a single pull to go to waste. He was like that with everything though, he would eat the tines off of a fork if his teeth could cut metal with how he ate.

  Olly clicked the seat in place and snubbed the smoke before doing a double take.

  He rubbed his eyes and opened them again.There was a girl walking barefoot in the rain with…Yellow paint on her shirt?

  Walking like that chick from that one horror movie? The chick that came out of your tv to kill you.

  Mismatched toes waterlogged in the rain and arms hugged a shivering form as wet ropes of hair covered her face.

  Olly stared dumbfounded for a moment before coming to his senses. on any given day Olly would tell you most people are fucking assholes and they can sit and spin…only to turn right the fuck around and break his back helping people he didn’t even know. Some of his boys would joke he would give you the skin off of his back because he didn't have the shirt any more.

  Olly sighed as he opened the car door and stepped out in the rain jogging after the girl. His black converse sent waves of water crashing against his jeans as his leg split through the layer of water. Scoosh scoosh.

  Fuck it was cold and she was just taking an afternoon stroll.

  “Hey!”, He shouted after her as he gained on her.

  way to go Olly, we are chasing a crazy woman through the rain.

  She stopped and turned around as her breath frosted against the grey onslaught of the rain. A shaky hand reached up and shoved her soaked hair over her shoulder.

  Olly could see her clearly now. Blue eyes. Raven black hair. Blank expression.

  “What the hell are you doing?”, Olly asked roughly as he blew into his hands to warm them. Breathing smoke like a dragon against the freezing rain.

  “Minding my own business”, She said wide eyed and blankly before finishing with a sarcastic sweetness with “as should you”

  Olly chuckled at that before pointing at her shirt and saying “There's noodles on your shirt”

  Abby moved her arms over the food on her shirt and scoffed. “Messy eater”

  “Lady, you're going to get frostbite out here. Let me give you a fucking ride at least”, Olly said as he pointed back to his car.

  Abby looked at the car and back at him with a deadpan expression before saying “I would rather lose my feet than get into that piece of shit with some guy I don’t know”

  Olly chuckled before wiping the water off his brow and saying “Lady I’m just offering a ride, that's it. You don't even gotta say nothing. “ Olly said, holding his hands out in a defensive gesture as the rain continued to explode against the street.

  Abby’s teeth rattled worse than his car as she pursed her lips as her frustration boiled over “I dont have anywhere to go..Guy” She said it slowly as if he himself was slow.

  Olly rubbed his mouth with his hand pondering for a moment before saying “don't worry about it I'll take you to a shelter or something”

  Abby’s eyebrows shot up to the sky as she said “nope”

  Olly was shivering now as he pointed back to the car. “Look lady..whatever but can we talk about it with the heater going?”

  To him it was like when a skinny stray growls at you. It don't trust no one so it snaps at every hand because the hand that was supposed to feed it fucked it over. She was growling but it wasn't personal.

  They already had plenty of dogs Olly had brought home with the “I wouldn’t do this shit to my worst enemy..I'll take care of him don't worry about it” Speech to his brother.

  Of course his brother would always say “Olly how in the fuck you gonna take care of yourself when you gotta feed an army of mutts?”

  “I dont give a fuck I’ll make it happen if I gotta fucking steal. Don’t worry about it”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Oh so when your getting ass fucked in a jail cell I get to take care of em?”

  In truth the army of mutts was only five strays. Not really that much if you asked him.

  The girl before him was giving him that same look as he sighed realizing his brother was not going to fucking like this at all. But he had another idea.

  “Look lady. I got fifty bucks -”

  “OH fuck no you perverte-”

  Olly felt his face get hot as he put his foot in his mouth. Panicking, he said “No! I meant to get you a room or somethin”

  She eyed him wearily hugging herself as the rain pounded against the top of her head.

  “it's your money”

  “A good friend of mine once said the triumph of evil is caused by the innaction of men”

  She scoffed and said “you aren't friends with Edmund Burke and that's not how the quote goes”

  Olly sighed, frustrated himself from the cold and said “Lady I can’t let you freeze to death out here, you coming or not?”

  Abby said nothing, instead she simply walked towards the car. Leaving Olly more confused than he had ever been in his life.

  “the fuck just happened?”, He muttered under his breath to himself as he followed after her and her long strides despite the cold and the rain.

  As they approached the car, the headlights cutting beams through the downpour into them, Olly went to the driver side and pulled the handle.

  “Fuck”

  He had locked himself out of his car.

  “Are you serious?!” Abby said seething with cold and frustration as she realized.

  “Hey I’m sorry alright?!”

  “You are Bad at kidnapping!”

  “I'm not a fucking creep!”

  “Oh my God I actually almost got into a car with a total stranger what the fuck is wrong with me?!”

  “Your feet if you keep standing in the cold”

  “If only there was unlocked car around her”, She said sarcastically as Olly rubbed the stubble growing on his jaw and regarded the car for a long moment before picking up a stone on the street and smashing the rear window.

  Abby yelped as the glass shattering pierced even the down pour of rain. Ollly reached through and over and pulled the drivers side lock open and got in the driver seat.

  He reached over and unlocked her side as she sat down on the worn passenger seat in a soggy mess.

  “cool so the rains in here now?”, She said annoyed as she reached for the climate controls like a starving man might snatch up a loaf of bread.

  Olly shot her a sidewways glance before saying “you know you are just a fucking ray of sunshine you know that?”

  “I didn’t ask to get ran up on in the middle of the street”, she said with the same mean girl tone as she warmed her wet hands by the heater vents.

  Olly shot her a smug glance before saying “no but you were asking to fucking freeze to death. What's your story”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head as if the very sound of his voice pissed her off and said “Don’t got one”

  “So where am I taking you”, He asked as he turned the ignition and got the ancient vehicle sputtering to life.

  Abby patted her pant pockets before a look of panic crossed her face and she muttered under her bgreath.

  “Forget something?”

  “Yeah my phone”, She said lifting her hips and checking her back pockets before sighing and putting her head between her hands.

  Olly looked at her considering his next move. If he had to bet a dollar she was running from something. Something she didnt want to go back to even for a second. Olly might not have been a brainiac but in his experience it was usually men. Men that needed a few less teeth. Olly reached into his jacket pocket watching her as he took out the pack of smokes and tapped her on the shoulder offering her one.

  She looked at it and shook her head no and muttered “don’t smoke”

  Olly nodded casually as he clamped the filter between his teeth and flicked the zippo open with a sharp tink

  He touched the flame to the end and pulled in deep into his lungs and said.

  “So let's go get that phone”

  Abby looked at him with wide eyes while she fucked with her hands. Fidgeted with her fingers. She shook her head the earlier bravado gone as she said “Ill just get a new one”

  Olly nodded as the gears turned. This girl full of piss and vinegar was terrified of wherever she just came from.

  Boyfriend?

  He stared out the window and pulled the smoke again, the cherry casting an orange light on the interior of the idle car as he pondered. Smoke wafting up lazy and curling into nothingness . He saw her out of his peripheral wrinkling her nose and swatting the air. He crushed the nearly new smoke in the ashtray before speaking again

  “So stay in the car. I'll go get it”

  Abby’s eyes lit up with panic, as she shook her head violently. The panic in her eyes brought on a coldness behind Olly’s eyes.

  He had heard guys say that bullshit about seeing red. He never got that. He just saw everything, emotions turned off, It was not anger. It was nothing. He got arrested the first time when he had stepped on a gentlemen's shoes in a bar. The man, already drunk, became belligerent. Olly was not angry as he double legged him and mounted him. But he also felt an excitement as the man's eyes glazed over and he kept hitting him. Nothing else existed. Not the man's screaming girlfriend. Not the crowd gathered around them watching the brutal beating. Not the bills, not the nothing. Just this fight. That was all that existed in the world.

  While Olly kept that side of him caged, it came out on its own from time to time. He remembered his friends saying his eyes were scary after the whole ordeal. Him beating a man senseless without a shred of emotion in his eyes. Predator eyes was the term they used after they bailed him out.

  He had emotions. Just not when you pushed his buttons. He didn’t like that. But he felt it now as those gears turned in his head.

  Olly regarded Abby looking her in the face without a word as she squirmed in the seat.

  “Just forget it”

  Olly took a deep breath and put a smile on his face forcing back the cold before deciding that maybe she has had an eventful enough day already.

  “Let's go to wally world. Get you that phone”

  “I dont have money”

  “Don’t worry about it”

  She shook her head defeated before asking annoyed “why the fuck are you even doing this?”

  Ollly put the sedan in drive with a fight of the stick and lurch of the shoddy transmission before saying “Because that's what a good person would do”

  Abby shook her head and asked in an accusing tone "OH so you’re a good person?”

  As the rain spattered against his back seat through the shattered back window Olly pondered the question for a moment before smiling a small sad smile and saying.

  “I hope so. At least I want to be”